Taxation or Tumbrels
1 hour ago
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Dead Cell Phone
A month and a half ago I got a new cell phone from Republic Wireless. They use Motorola Android phones which some consider to be decent mid grade phones. I was pretty happy with mine -until it stopped working while reading a Kindle book -not exactly heavy duty abuse.
Their web site had some suggestions but none worked. Over the course of a day I exchanged e-mails with a variety on-line trouble shooters. They were pleasant enough to deal with and their suggestions easy to follow. Unfortunately, nothing worked.
By the end of they day they said they'd have to replace my phone and shipped it the next day. It's supposed to come in tomorrow. Republic Wireless sent a PDF file for a mailing label so the old phone can be sent back. They want to check to see if the phone was abused. That doesn't worry me as it was well taken care of and I had sprung for the heavy duty protective Otter case. The phone looks new.
It's going to be a pain to set up a new phone, but probably not a serious pain. All in all I found them decent to deal with. My monthly phone bill has been only a little over $12/month, including tax, so that can't be beat. Their phones are optimized to work on wifi so as to limit expensive cell phone data usage.
My plan is actually the $25/month plan that allows for 1 gig of data usage. Since I've limited my phone use to wifi, plus cellar talk and text, they knock $15 off my bill. The extra $2 and change is due to taxes.
Regular cell phones don't get a signal at my house as there's a mountain between the tower and my house. The Republic phones work great on my home Internet connection through wifi.
If the new phone holds up better than the old one I'm seriously thinking of replacing my land line with a second Republic Wireless phone. It would pay for itself in about 6 months.
Of course, before I can even think of doing something like that I'll have to see how the replacement phone holds up.
-Sixbears
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$12 a month - not bad. My pay as you go Trac fone is $25 for 90 days, but not smart phone technolgogy so to me, you are getting a bargain. Hope the new phone performs better than the old.
ReplyDeleteMe too. I was really happy with the phone -until it suddenly died. Hope that's a fluke.
Deleteread somewhere that the landline always is tied in, no matter what and that emergency services can always be reached by it.
ReplyDeletei have an old 'real' telephone, a device to put over the mouth piece which makes he noises a computer understands for numbers on modern phones, and a land line to attach it to.
the modern phone needs electricity and batteries, both of which may disappear at times.
don't know if this is accurate , read it somewhere.
I've a Vonage phone over the Internet so the rules are a bit different. Pretty good service with them overall. Much cheaper than my regular land line was. That's a long story in itself.
DeleteWill it work with cell towers also, or is it strictly WiFi?
ReplyDeleteCell too. I can even use data over cell if I want to, but then I won't get the full $15 refund. Still, nice to know I can.
DeleteIf you give up your land line, wouldn't you lose your Wi-Fi?
ReplyDeleteNope. Totally different companies. Not bundled.
DeleteI got rid of my landline. Really bad customer service. Happy with just my cell phone.
ReplyDeleteUntil I got a cell phone that worked on wifi, that wasn't an option. The trend seems to be away from land lines.
Delete